Author: Justin Stebbing, Professor of Biomedical Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University

Deadly? Not likely. New Africa/Shutterstock.com The idea that fruit and vegetables might cause cancer sounds bizarre. For decades, studies have shown that people who eat more plants tend to live longer, healthier lives, with lower rates of heart disease, stroke and several common cancers. Lung cancer is no exception: in many large studies, higher intakes […]

Funda Demirkaya/Shutterstock.com Marriage, it turns out, may come with a side‑effect no one puts in the vows: people who have been married seem less likely to develop cancer than those who have never married at all. That is the provocative finding from a large new study that has raised interesting questions about what really keeps […]

Andrey Popov/Shutterstock Women’s HRT patches can treat prostate cancer just as effectively as standard hormone injections – but with fewer of the worst side-effects – according to a large UK trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The finding could change how men with prostate cancer that has spread beyond the gland are […]

Frame Stock Footage/Shutterstock.com NHS England’s new national cancer plan focuses on catching cancer earlier and treating it faster. The government has also promised to meet all cancer waiting-time targets by 2029. This includes a long-missed target, namely that most patients should start treatment within 62 days of being referred by their GP. Why does the […]

Dragon Images/Shutterstock.com Cancer and Alzheimer’s disease are two of the most feared diagnoses in medicine, but they rarely strike the same person. For years, epidemiologists have noticed that people with cancer seem less likely to develop Alzheimer’s, and those with Alzheimer’s are less likely to get cancer, but nobody could explain why. A new study […]

WikeSandra/Shutterstock.com A small group of patients with an otherwise incurable form of T‑cell leukaemia have seen their cancer driven into remission by an innovative form of immune therapy. The treatment uses T-cells – a type of white blood cell – from a healthy donor, re-engineered in the lab to recognise and attack leukaemia cells. Unlike […]

For anyone facing cancer, the treatment options can feel brutally familiar: surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, or a combination of them all. But a new approach is beginning to offer something very different. By using nothing more than precisely controlled sound waves, histotripsy can destroy tumours without cutting the skin or burning healthy tissue. Histotripsy uses technology […]

The NHS is embarking on a trial that could cut prostate cancer diagnosis times from weeks to a single day. The initiative uses artificial intelligence to analyse MRI scans, potentially transforming care for men with the most commonly diagnosed cancer in England. Up to 15 NHS hospitals, including Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, will pilot […]

Grey hair is an inevitable hallmark of ageing. It’s a visual reminder of the passing years and all the bodily changes that accompany it. But emerging scientific research is challenging this simple narrative – revealing that those silver strands on our heads could be an outward sign of our body’s own intricate defences against cancer. […]

A group of scientists in the UK recently demanded that bacon and ham products carry health warnings similar to those on cigarettes. These experts argue that these meats, which are often preserved with chemicals called nitrites, pose a cancer risk that successive UK governments have failed to address. They are urging the government to act […]